One of the best movies I've seen in a long time.

Rating: 10/10 (18 July 2013)

This film was a breath of fresh air. It has been so long since I've seen a film that was about entertaining the audience I had almost forgotten what it was like. For 2 hours I was told a story- I wasn't bombarded with product ads, lame pop-culture jokes or "tested well" extra plot lines that muddy a film. At no point did Rihanna or JT appear. The plot is simple, clean and precise. Even the tangents and science fiction suspensions that get overly complex are tightly controlled and reigned in well. The narration is effectively used to quickly set up the film without bogging us down in needless back story. The characters are simple & effective. Nobody is complex just for the sake of being complex. The writing is also very simple- but again, it really works. I didn't have to make an effort to enjoy this movie. I didn't try to figure out what vapid point the director was trying to force down our throats- instead I watched robots smash monsters, the good guys being good and the bad guys being evil and scary. Thank you so much Mr. Del Torro for remembering why we go to the movies in the first place.